My first FreshGuide experience These coupon services are exploding. Groupon, FreshGuide, Townhog, etc. A friend mentioned FreshGuide’s Coupa Cafe deal so I bit. Pay $10 for a $20 certificate. Sounds great, right? Wrong. Here’s the rundown of why the experience was awful. 1. I order my meal at the counter. 2. I hand over the slip of paper. 3. The cashier appears to have no idea what to do with it. 4. The cashier pulls the barista off the espresso machine to discuss. Now two employees are busy. 5. A minute passes before a third employee joins in the conversation behind the counter. 6. Another minute passes before the manager finally makes an appearance. Luckily, she knows what to do. 7. The manager asks for my ID. Um, ok. 8. She pulls out a stack of paper which appears to be a giant list of everyone who bought the FreshGuide coupon. She finds my name and crosses it off. 9. She hands me a piece of paper and forces me to write down my email address. Note: by now the line has ten people in it who all hate me. 10. She tells me I still owe $8.XX. I pay. 11. She creates a Coupa card with… $0 on it and hands it to me. Why? I have no idea. 12. Done after eight minutes too many. I’m embarrassed. It’s clear that the full user experience was not carefully thought out by FreshGuide. A new, complicated process was dropped into the hands of untrained, busy Coupa Cafe employees. As a result patrons suffered.

My first FreshGuide experience

These coupon services are exploding. Groupon, FreshGuide, Townhog, etc. A friend mentioned FreshGuide’s Coupa Cafe deal so I bit. Pay $10 for a $20 certificate. Sounds great, right? Wrong.

Here’s the rundown of why the experience was awful.

1. I order my meal at the counter.

2. I hand over the slip of paper.

3. The cashier appears to have no idea what to do with it.

4. The cashier pulls the barista off the espresso machine to discuss. Now two employees are busy.

5. A minute passes before a third employee joins in the conversation behind the counter.

6. Another minute passes before the manager finally makes an appearance. Luckily, she knows what to do.

7. The manager asks for my ID. Um, ok.

8. She pulls out a stack of paper which appears to be a giant list of everyone who bought the FreshGuide coupon. She finds my name and crosses it off.

9. She hands me a piece of paper and forces me to write down my email address. Note: by now the line has ten people in it who all hate me.

10. She tells me I still owe $8.XX. I pay.

11. She creates a Coupa card with… $0 on it and hands it to me. Why? I have no idea.

12. Done after eight minutes too many. I’m embarrassed.

It’s clear that the full user experience was not carefully thought out by FreshGuide. A new, complicated process was dropped into the hands of untrained, busy Coupa Cafe employees. As a result patrons suffered.